


When I Was Born For The Seventh Time

by The_Lionheart



Series: One Sword [11]
Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, SCP Foundation
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Bullying, Found Family, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Injury Recovery, Other, Recovery, SCP-427, Trans Dipper Pines, implied child neglect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2019-09-15 09:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: "We are what we believe we are."-C.S. Lewis





	1. Chapter 1

His head is heavy; sound and light are muffled and woolly. He feels empty, blank- it unsettles him, like 

_ crawling ants swarming the snake _

an unscratched itch on the inside of his skull. He supposes that makes sense; he loathes Not Knowing- he knows that he loathes Not Knowing, he knows that he always has to Know, everything, all at once, all the time- he knows that he wasn’t expecting this, that he wasn’t expecting anything-

-he knows that he’s Stanford Pines. Six fingers, curly hair, glasses, books, six fingers, broad shoulders, a lifetime of running, a lifetime of learning, a lifetime of loneliness, six fingers, a family lost, a family found, a girl and a boy- twins, bright eyes, curly hair- and a friend- glasses, books, a family lost- and a wife- glasses, a lifetime of running, a family lost- and his brothers, and six fingers and six toes. 

He can move his toes. He can’t move his fingers: his hands are hot and bound and sweating. There are hands clamped around both of his hands- broad, callussed in odd places, unlike his own. He opens his eyes. The room is brighter than he’d like, and blurrier- he shifts his head slightly and he can see his big brother on his right, Shermie’s head tilted back slightly in an uneasy sleep, Ford’s glasses tucked into Shermie’s front shirt pocket for safekeeping. 

He’s an old man, in his sleep like this, without his energy and nerve. His hair and beard are white- why hadn’t Ford noticed before? The lines in his face, the shadows against his eyes, the thinness of the skin on his hands. Had their Pops ever been that old? Ford doesn’t know, doesn’t remember him being this old at Ma’s funeral, hadn’t seen Pops again before the portal, and he’s sure Pops passed on in the meantime-

-his brothers would know, though. His big brother, clutching his hand for dear life in his sleep, which must mean that it’s Stanley here on his left. Ford shifts his head a little, and Stan is there, another old man, the face that had always been a softer mirror of his own craggy with decades of careless living and abuse. Stubble lines his cheeks and jaw- not really giving Ford a good idea of how long Stan’s been here, he’s had to shave every morning since Ford came home through the portal, and Mabel’s laughed at how scratchy and rough it is by nightfall, Ripley teasing him with an impossibly fond look in her eyes. 

The thought hits him like a jolt- Dipper and Mabel, and Summer and Morty, and Ripley, and Jess and Fiddleford, and the kids who’ve been in and out of the house all summer- and Ford sucks in a sudden, rasping breath, seeing that there are still-wet tracks down Stan’s face, and that his eyes are redrimmed, gazing in Ford’s direction. 

“You awake?” Stan asks quietly. Surely that’s despair on his brother’s face, surely that’s loss, surely that haunted look is because the gamble didn’t work- he doesn’t know all of the details yet, but he knows that he gambled to save them, and where is everyone else? What if there isn’t anyone else?

“Kids-” Ford says, his tongue tying as he tries to express his horror and sorrow. He doesn’t feel Ripley’s heartbeat. Surely he failed. Surely it’s over. There’s a curious ache in his throat and chest- the weight of guilt, justly deserved.  “Stan- _Stan_ , I-”

“Hey,” and his brother is so gentle, when did _that_ ever happen? Stan’s other hand presses against the back of Ford’s knuckles, cradling his hand. “Hey. The kids? They’re okay, Ford, the- the twins? The Sanchez kids? Even that obnoxious Northwest girl, right? They’re all okay. ‘Cept Gideon, who’s a little punkass, but that little punkass is unharmed, too. So. Guess that’s a wash.”

“What?” Ford asks raspily, blinking. Stan gives him a weak smile. “What happened? How- Bill was- how did-? And- Ripley and Jess and Fiddleford, where-?”

Stan’s attempt at a smile fades- he looks more than upset, he looks positively distraught, he looks furious. Ford blinks, his heart falling.

“About that,” Stan starts, and at Ford’s side Shermie stirs awake- roused, no doubt, by the conversation.

“Hey-” Shermie starts sleepily, then, seeing that Ford’s awake, “hey, you _fucking jackass_.” He doesn’t yet release his iron grip on Ford’s hand, although he’s careful when he plucks Ford’s glasses out of his pocket and places them on Ford’s face. The legs and frames are rubbing against something on Ford’s skin- it occurs, slowly and awfully, that there’s a bandage there, wrapped around his head. “How are you feeling?”

“Head injury?” Ford manages to ask, and both his brothers look, somehow, even angrier.

“Probably not,” Stan bites out.

“Probably?” Ford says slowly, and Shermie scowls at him, eyes glimmering treacherously behind his glasses.

“Do you know how many people here knew you had a plate in your head before the doctors tried to do an MRI?” he demands, and Ford’s mouth opens. “The answer is _none_ , Stanford. None of us knew that. Fucking miracle that we told the guy to try a CAT scan instead because we weren’t sure if your tattoo ink would affect the MRI.”

“Oh,” Ford says finally. “So-”

“So we had a CAT scan result with a big weird blank spot over half your brain, idiot!” Shermie snaps, his voice cracking. “We thought- shit, I don’t know what the fuck we thought, what if that fucking triangle erased it or something, I don’t fucking _know_ , I’m not the fucking doctor!” 

“Oh,” Ford says, wincing, and Shermie clamps his mouth shut, still looking dangerously close to tears after his outburst. “But, I- ah-” 

He doesn’t know how to ask- Stan, at least, seems to cotton on to what he’s thinking, a little bit.

“You feel funny because you’ve been sedated,” he says, huffing an exhausted sigh. “You were in a medically-induced coma for a couple of days, and you’ve been cleared to, I dunno, wake up in your own time for the last day, maybe. The docs still need to check to make sure your brain’s still doin’ okay, but the Foundation kids seem to think you’re fine. Fidds has been comin’ around every day, and the twins. If you’re worried, your goofy blue necklace is in a box at home, along with Ripley’s- you can’t wear that in here, it messes with the machinery. The twins’ parents, uh- Jake and Coral couldn’t get a flight out from wherever the hell they’ve been right away, but Soos and Jessie are at the airport right now, so they’ll be here soon enough.” He clears his throat. “Rick’s been in and out of here with the kids. Some of those alternate dimension Ricks came by, and there was a lot of general, uh, Rickishness, and they had to leave. The kids’ve come by once or twice without him, though, I uh- I think he- he can’t really- not after the stuff we’d seen, I think, um.”

Stan’s eyes meet Ford’s, then glide away. A lump rises in Ford’s throat.

“And- what about Ripley, though, is- is she okay?”

“She’s definitely _alive_ ,” Stan says weakly, and Ford gapes at him. Shermie sighs, taking his glasses off to swipe at his eyes before speaking.

“Ford, do you remember what- what happened?” he asks, and Ford- well- he remembers that she was building-sized at one point, he remembers smuggling the petrified townsfolk to safety, he remembers- there was- there was a fire, he knows- he thinks…. 

Shermie sighs. “What do you remember, Ford?”

“The kids had a plan,” Ford says softly. “And- Bill was-” Ford stops, something terrible striking him. He’d gambled- and failed- he knows that, for sure. “Bill-”

His eyes narrow, but Stan looks utterly unimpressed. 

“Pretty sure if that triangle’s not dead, he’s gone for good from this dimension,” Stan says shortly. “And he’s definitely not in your head anymore.”

“Well, yes, that’s what the plate’s for, it prevents Bill from entering-” Ford starts, and Shermie gives his thigh a slightly too-rough shove.

“Not if you _invite_ him in, you knucklehead!” he growls, and Ford inhales sharply, because he wouldn’t have- but- no, he- he knows that he did, he knows that he had a Plan, that he-

“Ford,” Stan says, interrupting his train of thought. “ _Do_ you remember what happened?” 

Ford swallows hard, his throat aching. “There was- there was a fire.”

“Yeah, you two were burned pretty bad,” Shermie says hoarsely. “You apparently got, uh, some smoke inhalation, I think. Jessie’d know, she looked at your charts. And you mighta noticed your hair’s shorter now.”

He hadn’t noticed. Ford inhales slowly, deeply. There might be a rattle there, he supposes. It could hardly matter. 

“I was... I was nearby,” he says haltingly. “I knew Bill was supposed to- to go into the fire, and- and he was- he was hurting the kids-” A mental images hits, blood and ichor and violently flopping limbs. Ford’s stomach lurches. Too many eyes. Too many teeth. “He was hurting Ripley. He was- he was going to eat her, I had to do something.”

There are matching noises of angry frustration from his brothers at that. Ford doesn’t want to let go of their hands.

“She… she was already very badly hurt,” Ford says miserably. “The townsfolk were all stone. He shot Fiddleford in the chest. Everyone was out in the open, where he could- where he could do _anything_ to them-”

His vision blurs, and Shermie and Stan both squeeze his hands.

“They’re okay, Ford,” Stan says gently. “He didn’t hurt them any more than he already had. Fiddsy’s okay, remember? And you… you did stop him.”

“He was laughing,” Ford says softly, and Shermie sighs, pulling his hand up and pressing a bristly kiss against his knuckles.

“Fools laugh first,” he says gruffly- one of their father’s sayings, but he doesn’t sound like Pops, not the way Stan can when he wants to.

“I don’t remember- after he- after he came back in, I don’t remember after that,” Ford says, and Stan and Shermie sigh at him.

“He took over- didn’t let you jump in like you wanted to, you idiot. He threatened you, and the kids, and uh… well… Ripley was… I think she was coherent enough to know she had to do something, too,” Shermie says, and Stan nods at him.

“Hence the burns and… smoke,” Ford suggests, and they murmur in agreement. “So she- she pushed me in, then, right? Makes sense, it- it’s the most logical thing anyone could have done, I’m glad she thought of it-” 

“-uh, well, here’s the thing,” Stan interrupts, his face falling. “She didn’t exactly… push you in.”

“But- but I went through the fire somehow, didn’t I?” Ford asks, and Shermie presses his mouth together, a veritable bearded mimic of their mother on the verge of expressing disapproval.

“Your _wife_ ,” he says tartly, his eyes burning behind his glasses, “seemed to think it _prudent_ to grab onto you and throw herself and you into a bottomless pit full of _fire_.”

“She what!?” Ford yelps, sitting up immediately despite the sudden vertigo at the movement. “What in the- what was she thinking, where is she, I’ve got to-”

“You’re not goin’ anywhere, so siddown!” Stan snaps. “Sherm’s bein’ dramatic, it was more of a flying tackle-”

“Into an infinite pit of flame!?” Ford shouts, his voice cracking on the last word, going dry and powerless and sending him into a fit of painful, uncontrollable coughs. 

“And what exactly _was_ your plan again, genius?” Shermie shouts back- before inhaling deeply, seemingly restraining himself. “I’m gonna get this kid a glass of water before he does himself a disservice.”

He gets up, before giving his and Ford’s hands a bemused look. “Stanford, I’ll come back. I promise I’ll be back.” 

Ford releases him, still coughing- probably why it feels like his face and neck are so hot, he feels like his lungs are trying to climb out through his mouth. Shermie steps out through the door- he’s never been here before but Ford thinks this might be Gravity Falls General Hospital, now that he’s not laser-focused on his brothers’ faces. 

Stan is still cradling his left hand, looking unhappy. “D’you need me to whack your back or-?”

“No,” Ford wheezes, shaking his head. Stan gives his hand an absentminded pat.

“Well, gettin’ this over with so you two don’t start yellin’ at each other again,” he mutters. “So Ripley and you both go into the pit, along uh- along with her lightning bugs, before you got back, uh, she gave the kids a jar-”

“I know,” Ford chokes out, and Stan nods.

“Don’t talk, bro, wait for the water,” he says gently. “So you two plus a thousand bugs go into the fire. It must’ve… done what it was supposed to do, I guess. Everything Bill’s done since the portal opened over the weekend went away, just like that, and out you two came, alive, where the pit dumps out the weird shit that it thinks belongs in Gravity Falls. And her bugs, too, although, uh, they didn’t make it.”

Ford shoots him a pleading look, and Stan sighs, scrubbing his silver hair back from his forehead with one hand, the other still clamped tight on Ford’s.

“She’s alive,” Stan says, after a moment. “She hasn’t woke up yet, uh, we- look, you gotta understand, a lot of weird stuff happened to her. They thought she’d- well- look, I’m not a doctor-”

“Stan!” Ford says, and coughs again.

“Alright, look, even before you two went in there, she’d been burned up pretty bad, she’d, uh- she’d lost a lot of blood, I think they said, and you didn’t- I think you didn’t have to see from where you were, how bad it was, but it looked like Bill’d…” Stan’s voice trails off. “It looked like he cut her open in the fight and all, Ford. When she was her-sized again it looked like she’d been gutted. I don’t know how she was… was up and moving. Her arms were raw meat. And she- she had eyes everywhere, she had mouths…” 

Stan forces a wet chuckle. “The kids are gonna have nightmares for the rest of their lives, Ford.”

“The kids are gonna need _therapy_ for the rest of their lives,” Shermie corrects softly from the doorway, a paper cup of water in one hand, a pair of cans of Pitt in the other. “This institution doesn’t stock Pepsi, Stanley.”

“Not sure why you think that’d be my doing,” Stan says mildly, sniffling back and finally letting Ford’s hand go to open up his can. Ford stares at them, and Shermie holds the water out to him, only the faintest tremble in his hand.

“The doctors did every scan they could think of, Stanford. She’s… well, there’s a couple of nasty new scars, but they looked like they’d already been closed up by the time we got to you two. Lot of scar tissue in her guts, but it mostly looks like she didn’t lose anything. Somewhat less than the normal amount of teeth, but Stanley’s reassured me that she’d been missing a few prior to this incident. Two eyes.” Shermie tries a weak smile, seeing Ford sip at the cool water. “And Johnny’s done a couple of tests, too, and whatever the results were, he seemed to think that it didn’t matter in the long run, so.”

“So that’s the good news. Um, bad news is, well. It might be a little while longer before she wakes up,” Stan admits, and after a moment of blind groping Ford’s hand finds his again. “She’s not, uh- well- at one point the doctors said she might not, uh, ever, but. She’s doin’ better now, accordin’ to John, we haven’t been able to get in there to check but-”

“Wait- wait you, you haven’t _seen_ her?” Ford demands, crushing the now-empty cup. 

“Immediate family only for now, Ford,” Shermie says, gently prising the cup from his hand. “You’re the husband but you’ve been out, Rick hasn’t, uh- hasn’t asked to come in, it’s just John in there. He’s barely left, though, and only because Jess twisted his arm to take a nap and a shower.”

“That- that’s garbage, our family _is_ her family,” Ford says angrily, pulling himself a little more upright. “Where do I- who do I talk to about this, where’s-” A thought strikes through his outrage. “And who the _hell_ is this John? Why are they letting some random-”

“He’s in there as her dad, Ford,” Stan says, and Shermie grins wetly at Ford’s uncomprehending face.

“Ripley doesn’t have a-” he starts, then stops, frowning. “Is- I thought Rick’s parents were dead, you don’t- surely you don’t mean to say-”

“No, you knucklehead,” Shermie says, rolling his eyes a little. “You missed that part too, kid. Whatever other bullshit that Foundation gets to, within twenty minutes of the staff tellin’ him no, that Junior Researcher handed John whatever paperwork he needed to prove that he, John Savage, is Ripley Savage’s adopted father. S’the only reason she hasn’t been _alone_ all this time, Stanford.”

Ford feels almost sure that he’s still under the influence of the sedatives Stan’d mentioned earlier. He swallows and takes a deep breath.

“John Savage- the _same_ John Savage?” he asks, and Shermie and Stan both nod. “Okay, I- that’s- that’s wonderful, but- I- please… start from the beginning, please.”

“Technically, that would be Vietnam,” Shermie says mildly, and Stan and Ford shoot him irritated looks at the same time. “Alright, okay, but- well- so you know how Ripley and John got abducted by aliens one night back in 1994, right?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

It’s a dim neighborhood- she recognizes it, in a vaguely disconnected way. She remembers this place, though now it’s whole instead of intercut with the places she’s lived and visited in the decades since she was here last. The light overhead is gray and there are rumblings of thunder around her, but when she raises her eyes to look, the sky is a cloudy mint-green. 

There’s a house ahead; it’s the house where she- where some parts of her- had taken refuge, in the Bubble, when everything had gone to shit. There’s a cute wraparound porch, and a couple of wooden rocking chairs, and a little radio on the table next to the one with an occupant already rocking in place.

There’s a girl on the radio, singing- Skeeter Davis, Stan’d said- and there is a river of ice running through her as she takes another step or two forward. She doesn’t remember having been anywhere else beforehand, but she’s sure she must have been somewhere. 

There’s a girl in the chair, humming quietly along, murmuring the words now and then- “Don’t they know, it’s the end of the world?”- and picking delicately at the plasma sword in her lap with a pair of thin, needle-like tools. The girl couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen- surely no older than Morty or Wendy, maybe only a little bit older than the twins are now- and she can recognize herself in the girl. 

One of her selves, anyway. A broken, unloved teenager. She looks cleaner than she had before, none of her fingers broken, the bruises on her face and throat and arms fading, her cheeks fuller, her hair brighter, and a pair of familiar glasses perched on her nose.

They’re Fiddleford’s glasses. The girl on the porch looks up, smiling faintly. 

“Come and grab some seat,” she says. Ripley takes a tentative step up onto the porch, but nothing changes, and there’s no distant howl from She-That-Was. 

She supposes she might as well sit. The neighborhood is quiet, as a gentle rain starts to fall with a musical patter on the awning. 

“So, I don’t seem to be dead,” Ripley says, after a moment. The self at her side makes an agreeable noise. “This place looks nicer than when I saw it last.”

“It does indeed,” she replies, glancing over. “A lot can change over the years.”

“I meant- I meant when- when it was the Alpha and the Good Girl and my family was all here,” Ripley explains, feeling foolish. “And you and me and the… the thing that Tasha left.”

“I know what you meant, but what you meant was inaccurate,” she says mildly. “The last time you were here was in August of 1994.”

Ripley’s quiet, picking at the material of her pants. They’re soft, homespun, gray- Devaaki’s work, now that she thinks about it. Comfortable and sturdy. Good for learning swordsmanship. She’d never asked him how he knew how to make clothing that fit humans. She’d made assumptions about when he would have done so in the past. It strikes her, hard and unforgiving, that she hasn’t seen him in such a long time, that she killed him, that Bill killed him, that she’ll never see him again. 

The song on the radio changes. Johnny Cash, _We’ll Meet Again_ , dancing clumsily with Stan, her face pressed against his shoulder. 

“I-” she starts, her voice cracking. “I thought I would stop missing people. Devaaki and the old boss. The little girl in the village with the dragon. Jheselbraum. Hyde… even that alien who bought me first, even… even Tasha. I miss people who only ever _hurt_ me. I miss-”

“You miss Rick,” the younger Ripley says kindly, glancing over. “You miss Grandma Jessie, who lived here and wasn’t really your grandma. You miss your friend, Greg. You even miss Mami and Dad.” 

Ripley’s hands grip the ends of the arm rests, her fingernails digging lightly into the wood. “It’s not fair. They don’t miss me. They didn’t even want me in the first place. I don’t remember them, but I remember that-”

“You know that’s not true,” her younger self chides, sighing. “You remember them. You just don’t like it. It’d be better if they were ghosts, some mysterious question with no answer, than what they really were. If you don’t know who they are, you can pretend they were anybody. And if you don’t know who you are, you could be anybody, too.”

Ripley exhales slowly. “And I didn’t want to be me _before_ I forgot who I was.”

They sit and watch the rain a little more, and Ripley sniffles, feeling sorry for herself.

“Did I deserve it? Did I deserve any of it? Maybe when I was an adult, maybe when I tried and failed- or didn’t try, and made things worse- but _did_ I deserve being a kid in that house?”

“Nobody would have deserved being a kid in that house. And… you’re right that it’s not fair,” she says, glancing down at the plasma sword in her lap and fiddling with something tiny. “But a lot of what happens and has happened isn’t. It wasn’t fair what happened to Stan and Ford, either. It wasn’t fair what happened to Fiddleford. It’s not fair that Tasha chose you, and it’s not fair that Tasha was chosen. All these things did happen, and the way they happened meant that you’re here now, with everybody. With a real family, one that loves you. Is that what you get, for what you paid? Or is it also unfair, just in a different direction?”

Ripley closes her eyes for a moment, before glancing at the teenager beside her. “This philosophical bent might be why you were Nasty, you know.”

“Is that really what you think?” she replies, and Ripley shrugs.

“I think this is a dream. I think if I wake up now, you’ll stop existing, because you never did exist, you were just another part of me. And if you’re just a part of me, then you don’t know what you're talking about, and I don’t have to listen.”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at all this,” she says, smiling a little. “Do you know why you’re here, Ripley?”

“I’m dreaming,” Ripley says quickly.

“You might be,” she concedes. “You might not be. I mean, is it more likely that I’m just a part of you that you haven’t wanted to face in twenty years? Or is it equally likely that I’m some unknowable force of creation and benevolence, reaching out to you in the only form I know you’d trust to tell you the sometimes-ugly, sometimes-lovely truth?”

Ripley huffs a sigh at herself. “Right. Can’t keep it simple, like that dreams are dumb and my brain is feeling weird.” 

“Could be that your dreams are dumb and your brain is feeling weird, too,” she says, grinning back at herself. Ripley looks her over, a smile forming- whatever else she is or was, she wasn’t a bad kid, back then. She turns and watches the rain again, for a little while.

“Do you… Brain, do you think I should talk to Rick?” she asks experimentally. “Just to- just to let him know that it’s me, that I’m- I might not know all the details yet, I think, but I know- I know that we’re…” The word catches in her chest, feels impossibly big in her throat. “...family?”

The other, younger her is silent. Ripley swallows back, dread crawling up her back as the rain gets heavier, windier.

“Do you think they’re all mad at me for starting the apocalypse?” 

“I’m sure they’re not,” she replies smoothly, quickly. “And… for what it’s worth, concerning Rick, your relationship can only be half controlled by you. You know that you can try as hard as you like, be as obedient or accommodating as you wish, and it won’t change whether or not he’s open to the idea of having something with you. You’ve always known.”

Ripley breathes out a heavy sigh. “I feel like I’ve had this conversation before.”

“You have. Many times, with many people, in many lifetimes, on many branches of the beam,” she says, quirking her mouth to one side in a wry grin. “And usually with yourself, if we’re going to be honest with one another.”

“Oh, good. I hate breaking a trend,” Ripley mutters. She tilts her head back, closes her eyes. “I feel like- I feel like I remember that Tasha was right, wasn’t she? Like everything she said about me becoming a monster was true in the end.”

“The people who love you would argue,” she says, after a drawn-out moment.

“But are they right? Are they more right than Tasha?” she persists, and Ripley gives herself a scathing look.

“Do you really believe Tasha more than you believe Stan and Ford? Do you really believe her more than you believe the kids?”

She supposes she doesn’t, but it feels bad, and she says so. The song on the radio changes again. Nirvana, _The Man Who Sold The World_. 

“I don’t remember what I was doing, before,” she says, careful not to talk over Kurt Cobain too much. “I kind of remember being big and fighting Bill. I remember… I don’t know what I remember.” 

“As usual, as always, you remember a lot more than you want to,” she replies. “You know that you can’t avoid thinking about it forever, though.”

“I don’t know what you-” she starts, and Ripley puts the tools down, sighing.

“You know that you expected both of you to die in that fire,” she says, looking over. “You thought you’d kill Ford, and yourself, and Bill, and whatever you thought still remained of Natashoggoth. And you’re afraid that if you’re still alive and dreaming, that maybe no one else is dead, either.”

Lightning strikes the mailbox, out on the curb. Ripley jumps a little; her younger self doesn’t move or visibly react. 

“Ford can’t be dead,” she says thickly. “He can’t be dead if I’m still alive. That’s not- it’s not right. It’s not what’s _supposed_ to- he’s supposed to live, his family needs him, and- and he deserves to be happy, if anybody was supposed to die it’s-”

“Don’t finish that thought,” she whispers to herself. “Don’t dwell on it when you think it. Don’t think it if you can help it. Don’t bear it alone. The people who love you want to help you, and they can.”

Ripley sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve. 

“Ford isn’t dead, anyway,” she continues briskly. “And he’ll want to see you when you wake up, as will everyone else in your family.”

“How do you _know_?” Ripley asks herself miserably, and she reaches over, gently taking her hand. 

“If you don’t believe me, you can always wake up and find out for yourself,” she says, and her smile is broader and kinder than Ripley would have thought possible on that face. “I think you’ll find that you have more family around than you realize.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

She approaches awareness in pieces. Much of her body is numb and heavy, floating untethered in a sea of warmth. Something hurts, in a vague way, but there’s just too little information for her to tell where. She can’t move anything- she’s too tired, though, much too tired to try.  A hand comes to rest on her forehead, smooths the hair back. A mouth presses gently against the top of her head in a kiss.

“Can you hear me, Ripley?” someone asks, and it puzzles her, how familiar this stranger’s voice is. There is a beeping in the background. The voice laughs weakly. “Well, I hope that’s a good sign. I hope you can hear me, kiddo.”

She can. She wants so much to tell him that she can hear him. He pats her head again, and there is a rustle nearby- her brain makes a fuzzy picture of a man taking a seat, and she feels sure that it’s right. 

“I’m here, kid. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here now.”

She finds she trusts the voice. She finds it’s not too hard to slip back into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

There's something that Mabel's said ever since they read the Harry Potter books together a couple of years ago: _there are some things you can't share without liking one another, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them._

Dipper generally never believed that this could be true, before Gideon helped them rid their dimension of Bill Cipher. To be totally honest, he's not really sure if he _does_ like Gideon, or if Gideon likes him- but Gideon's trying, at least in public, and they haven't been alone with one another before now.

Not that they're really _alone,_ now, but Dipper doesn't recognize anyone else here.

"So," Dipper says awkwardly, and Gideon gives him a small nod. The hospital waiting room is intensely cold, after the heat of the fire that ate away Bill Cipher's place in the world, after the soupy heat of Weirdmageddon, after a summer in Grunkle Stan's- or, maybe, Grunkle Ford's- un-air-conditioned cabin. Dipper rubs his hands over his arms, clearing his throat. "Who you here to visit?"

"M'parents," Gideon says easily, and Dipper gives him a sympathetic grimace. All around them are other people, all waiting to be reunited with their loved ones. Dipper glances around the room, tapping his foot on the thin carpet.

"So are you... staying with a relative or something, right now?" Dipper asks, and Gideon scoffs.

"None of my kin has come up from Tallahassee yet," he says, and waves a tiny, powder-white hand. "I'm used to bein' alone in that house, it ain't much different from what it's like in the off-season."

"It's been more than five days, though," Dipper says quietly, and Gideon glares at him.

"I can handle myself just fine alone. Been doin' it for years," he snaps, and Dipper looks at his knees, sticking pale past the edges of his dark olive-green shorts. Grandma'd made him put on a clean pair before she and Soos went to go get Mom and Dad from the airport, because she didn't want his parents to think that Grunkle Stan had let him wear the same two pairs of shorts all summer.

"Have you seen anybody else we know?" he asks, instead of telling Gideon that the thought of being alone for almost a week after what they'd been though is maybe the saddest thing Dipper's heard of in a long time.

"Just the Corduroys," Gideon says, after a moment. "Some of'em, anyhow. The boys." After a pause, he adds, "Michael's in my grade. We're goin' into fifth grade in a few weeks, I guess."

"Yeah, man, it's- fifth grade's pretty cool," Dipper offers. Gideon shoots him a withering look, which- is fair.

"Who're you here to visit?" Gideon asks.

"Great-uncle Ford. My Grandpa said he's awake," Dipper says, and Gideon nods, visibly interested- well, that's fair, too, he guesses. Gideon'd had Ford's second Journal for a couple of years, apparently. The Author must have been the closest thing Gideon had to a friend.

"Have you been in to see your aunt?" Gideon asks, and Dipper shakes his head, frowning.

"They won't let anybody in to see her except for immediate family, and I guess we're... not immediate enough," he starts, and Gideon jumps to his feet. His tiny blue cowboy boots are looking pretty rough, like maybe Gideon hasn't really been taking care of them since everything started.

"Well, that's a big steamin' pile of horsefeathers, Pines. What's she gonna do, sue the hospital for lettin' y'all in to see her?" he demands, and Dipper shrugs. "Come on."

Dipper glances around. Everyone else seems to be dealing with their own problems right now. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggestin' we take matters into our own hands," Gideon says archly, and Dipper shrugs and stands. "Come on. The nurses here barely keep track of their surveillance cameras, and the electric locks have been on the fritz since everything that happened, so they've been keepin' the doors propped open."

"Uh- yeah, how do you even know that, Gideon?" Dipper asks, and Gideon gives him a small, speculative grin.

"I been monitorin' _my_ surveillance cameras, obviously," he says, which is ridiculously creepy.

"You do know that's ridiculously creepy, don't you, Gideon?" Dipper asks, and Gideon shrugs.

"It'll get us in t'see your aunt, though," he says, motioning for Dipper to follow. "Come on, if we get caught we can just say we were lookin' for the bathroom."

Dipper's been to other hospitals before, but in the harsh glare of the overhead lights and in the deeply offensive lemon-cleaner smell of the hallways he feels like maybe they're all the same hospital, connected by whatever weird twist of physics connects people to their dreamscapes, or connects their dreamscapes to the Nightmare Realm. He's glad that Mabel isn't here, to be honest- not because he doesn't want her around, but because he thinks it'd be easy for her to get creeped out by the pale not-quite-mint gray-green of the walls and the gleam of waxed and polished linoleum reflecting the lights back up against them. He thinks she'd try too hard to make it less creepy, and that she'd make weird, loud noises to distract him and herself from the creepiness, and that she'd succeed.

He thinks he likes creepy- not creepy the way Gideon'd been weird around his sister, or creepy the way Bill'd laughed and taken over Ford's body and face and voice for those last few minutes there, nor creepy like the bad dreams he barely remembers in the mornings- everyone in his family crowned in fire, coated in red, telling him that it was the only way to save him, but... creepy like Aunt Ripley thoughtfully explaining how nutritious the bugs in a cave are, or creepy like how Grunkle Fidds makes slightly-too-awkward jokes about eating stray cats, or creepy like Grunkle Ford's gross brown protein jelly bricks that he sometimes eats with Aunt Ripley. Creepy like how the creatures in the forest know him and Mabel by name, maybe. Creepy like the Mystery Shack and the weird, fake exhibits that Grunkle Stan likes to make. Creepy like the way it first felt, when he found a hidden chamber in a fake tree in the woods and discovered a thirty-year-old handbound journal stained with blood and warning against trusting anyone else, creepy the way it'd felt special- the way it'd felt _magic._

He knows it can't last- he knows that if he stayed in Gravity Falls, the creepiness would get, well, normal. He'll get used to it, the way everyone here eventually got used to it, and the magic won't stay. Three months ago he would have lost his mind over a real alien artifact, or evidence of the Men In Black, or a decently detailed rumor of a cryptid sighting- and yesterday he'd had lunch with a few members of a Men In Black style organization using a wedge of metal from a crashed alien ship as a table, while wearing bracelets made of actual unicorn hair.

Dipper hadn't even noticed until Mabel'd pointed it out to him last night. And it's great, it really is-

-only he wants the magic to stay, is the thing. He wants the thrill of feeling or thinking or seeing something creepy, and not just differently-normal. He thinks he loves Gravity Falls a whole lot- the place itself as much as his family in it, almost- but he's going to be glad to go home, where the weirdest thing he ever sees is a particularly intelligent-looking raccoon who likes to pick old Chinese takeout out of their garbage cans.

The hospital is creepy in a way that a magic forest full of monsters who know him can't be. The hospital is creepy in a way that all hospitals are, and as long as possible Dipper wants it to stay that way, and Mabel is wonderful, yeah, but she's also an expert at making things uncreepy.

"This way," Gideon whispers to him, gesturing at an elevator.

"How do you know what floor she's on?" Dipper asks, and Gideon points to a sign next to the elevator doors: 1st FLR ER/LABS/PHARMACY | 2nd FLR DIABETES AND ENDOCRINE | 3rd FLR OB/GYN/MATERNITY | 4th FLR POST OP | 5th FLR BURN CENTER

"She's not gonna be on the third floor, I'd imagine," Gideon says drily. "She's gonna be on one of the top two floors."

"Oh," Dipper says, trying to ignore both the contents of the third floor and the heat rising in his face and ears at the thought. "Y-yeah, Grandma said she hadn't needed specialized burn, uh, doctors, so it's probably the fourth floor."

"Right. And that would be Missus Jessenia Pines _nee_ McGucket, I'll presume?" Gideon asks, jabbing at the elevator button a couple of times.

"Uh- that's the only Grandma here, so yeah," Dipper says warily. "Gideon, how do you _know_ that?"

"Surveillance systems, remember?" Gideon asks, and Dipper stops him before he can step into the elevator with a hand to his shoulder. "What?"

"That's not just creepy, Gideon. You know that, right? Like- that's private between... between our family. Grandma's not going around telling people that. You can't just, can't just- also, okay, _where_ is the camera? That conversation happened inside the Mystery Shack!" Dipper says sternly, his neck covered in prickling goosebumps as he thinks about that night- about the personal, _private_ stuff his uncles and aunts and grandparents were talking about, about Gideon and who knows who else listening and watching as Grandma found out that the little brother she'd lost forever ago was alive and okay and a part of her family again, about Gideon seeing and hearing his Grandpa and uncles cry, about Gideon seeing and hearing the way everyone eventually just... left, one at a time.

"I'll see to it I dispose of the cameras at my earliest convenience, Pines," Gideon says coolly, and Dipper pulls his hand back. They step inside and the doors enclose them in a tiny, eyeless room, with maybe a minute, maybe two minutes at most, before they see someone else, before someone else sees them.

"Why are you helping me?" Dipper asks, because this really is the first time they've been alone since Gideon'd tried to use his magic amulet to kill Dipper and prevent him from keeping Mabel away from him. That time probably _had_ been the first time they'd been alone together, too.

Gideon shrugs; he says, as if reading Dipper's mind: "I tried to take your life and you helped save mine. That's somewhat more debt'n I'm cozy with."

Perhaps Gideon can read his mind, though Dipper thinks that couldn't have been the case, or else Gideon would have known from day one not to call Grunkle Stan _Stanford._

Unless it were always some ploy to get everyone's guards down, including Stan's.

Dipper catches Gideon watching his own boots as he shuffles them in the murky reflection in the elevator's metal sides, and it hits him that a kid- even a smart kid who was put into a grade ahead where he would be the youngest and weirdest kid in his class, on top of being newer and having a weird accent, on top of feeling like he had to always be performing, always be a cute character to get attention instead of just a kid who deserves it- isn't even going to think like a kid two or three years older, even if he _is_ used to being smarter. It hits him that Gideon'd never had someone pay attention to him when he wasn't performing, and that he hadn't been able to stop himself gloating if he ever thought he was at an advantage, and knowing the true identity of the man who owned the Mystery Shack- and all the baggage that entails- would have been one heck of an advantage.

For the second time today, Dipper feels sorry for Gideon. He remembers being nine and miserable and isolated: the way other kids stared at him and made pointed, just-too-quiet comments to one another the few times he dared to ask the teacher if he could _go to the little boys room_ , the way the teacher would stare at him- and those first times, the way she said _no_ , and gave him the pink-fobbed key instead of the blue, before Mabel went and told his mom and dad and they came down on the school principal like a load of flaming bricks. He remembers being _too smart for his own good_ and- the one time he'd overheard his teacher complaining to the principal about giving him special treatment and using his new name, the way her mouth bit down on the syllables, as if it's his fault she caught them in her teeth- _precocious and spoiled_. He remembers Valentines Day that year, nobody filling out a card for his new name _or_ his old name.

But he'd had Mabel that year, and the year before it, and the years after. Mabel had been the first and brightest light in his life

_My Favorite Brother_

and he doesn't know what he would have done if he'd had to face all that alone, only to meet Mabel later, only to recognize how good and how kind she was and realize with a sort of desperation that she wouldn't or couldn't be able to carry him through what was always waiting at school or on playgrounds.

It hits Dipper that Gideon's just so _little._ That when he and Mabel were nine, they were also _little._ That one day- maybe not even that long from now- he's going to look back at the summer they spent here, twelve-going-on-thirteen, and realize he'd been little then, too.

He wishes that they'd gone to Ford's room first, after all- that he could have climbed into Grandpa Shermie's lap, or maybe Stan's, and asked to be held, and asked to know if growing up means remembering that once you were so small and little and helpless and thoughtlessly brave. He wishes that he could ask Aunt Ripley- who might not always remember being little, but who would always be straight with him. Maybe she'd remember being twelve and little, too- or maybe she'd remember being twelve and no one caring that she was little, then- but if she knows something that she thinks would help him, he knows she would share it.

They step out onto the fourth floor together, Dipper trailing a little behind Gideon, and an awful thought occurs to him- what if she's not really doing okay at all? What if they come up here just in time to see some doctor- some balding doctor in thick glasses that Dipper has conjured entirely from his imagination- shake his head sternly and rip the power cord for her life support out of the wall? Worse, what if they come up up here to find out that they're five minutes too late, that she's already gone?

It occurs to Dipper that Gideon might not have ever known anyone who died, or seen a dead body. It occurs to him that Gideon is too young to see that, yes, but in a frightened and _little_ way he also knows that he's too young to see it, that he's terrified of seeing it.

"Gideon, wait," Dipper says, but Gideon strides through the hallways with a purpose, peering up at the little placards next to the doors. "Where are you going?"

"These're all recovery rooms for outpatient and single night recovery," Gideon says, glancing beadily up at Dipper. "There's a green dot next to the room numbers. The long-term recovery rooms have purple dots. Do you think they'd give her a room with a view of the town or of the forest?"

Dipper actually stops and thinks hard for a moment. Aunt Ripley loves the town, but the town is still half under construction to fix the chaos from last week, whereas the forest looks pretty much the same as it always does, an unbroken rippling sea of greens and browns and yellows rising up against the edges of the Cascadian mountain range that never seems to look any thinner despite all the generations of logging families that have built their lives here. It looks like it did a week ago; it probably looks like it did when Quentin Trembley first came here looking to settle.

He thinks she'd honestly appreciate both views- largely for the same reasons- but he turns it over in his head. Magic healing or not, he'd seen her covered in black and green burns and sores that wept green-black oozy pus and ran red with human-looking blood, he'd seen her walking with two feet of her own guts trailing in the grass between her legs, he'd seen her hair- just as she and Ford had disappeared into the fire- blacken and curl as the flames ate at it. Stan had seen it, and he's still so used to checking for intruders who know him by another name that he sleeps with a bat under his easy chair and an unlocked gun case in his bedroom. Those people from the Foundation- including the man that seemed to be friends with Grandma and Grandpa- had seen it. He asks himself if any of them would want her in a room with a window, when a window would be that much harder to fortify against... against whatever might want to come through it, maybe.

"No view," Dipper says confidently. "If there's a long-term room without a window at all, that's where they'd have wanted her."

"Yeesh, okay," Gideon says, glancing at a purple-dotted room before moving on. "There's a couple rooms like that. That's where they put flight risks- prisoners from the local jail, people on you-know-what-watch, people with advanced Lumberjack Syndrome, really anybody from the county crazy-house over in Lake."

Dipper can't imagine what _you-know-what-watch_ might be, doesn't want to ask. Instead, he opts for, "Hey, how do you even know this? And don't say your security cameras, you wouldn't be able to get this much detail off a standard camera system if it was trying to like, read it off a printed page. Are you a hacker now too?"

"Do not be ridiculous, you blessed thing," Gideon snaps. "Believe it or not, books are a thing you can read- do you know how to read, Pines?- and you learn stuff from them."

Then he stops at a door he must think is the correct one, because he jiggles in place and motions at Dipper to open it. Dipper understands then- before this summer, if they'd met at school maybe, he and Gideon might have been friends. Awkward and sarcastic friends, the kind of friends who don't share secret hopes or dreams or fears with one another, but a kind of friend nonetheless. After everything that's happened, he doesn't know if they ever _could_ be friends. Not just because of what Gideon's done- or the fact that Dipper's starting to wonder if Gideon even really knows himself what he's done- but because this thing between them- Weirdmageddon, and saving the world, and both of them loving and needing Mabel, and Gideon learning that what he wanted from her was something she didn't want to give, and Dipper learning that what he needed from her would always, eventually, win over what she wanted or thought she wanted- is too big to go away. They can be friendly, sometimes, and they can care about one another, and care what happens to the other, and do what they can to help each other out, but in the end, Dipper's never going to be the person Gideon goes to when he needs someone in his corner, and Dipper- Dipper's never going to need Gideon when he has Mabel. He's always got someone in his corner.

"Gleeful," Dipper says, putting a hand on Gideon's arm. Gideon stiffens and looks warily up at him, and Dipper doesn't think of the boy up on the stage at the Tent of Telepathy, but of the bright-eyed and bloody little girl inside Aunt Ripley's Treehouse. "Thanks, man."

"Gratitude is appreciated but not required, Pines," Gideon says stiffly. Dipper doesn't think he and Gideon have a snowball's chance in- well, in heck right now, although he also knows that before winter break he's going to be thinking and saying _hell_ instead- of being friends, now or ever. But he thinks maybe Gideon needs somebody who might be a good big brother, instead. Maybe Grandpa Shermie can give him some tips.

They both reach for the door, pause and exchange wry grimaces, and Dipper finally opens it.

A man is sitting next to the hospital bed- an old African-American man, Aunt Ripley's height but skinnier, in a way that makes Dipper wonder if he's sick, if he's been sick before- and he moves with the same fluid tension Aunt Ripley carries with her as he turns to the door. Knowing what he knows about his Grunkles, Dipper wouldn't be surprised to learn that the man has something he can fight with in easy reach. The man relaxes, his face breaking out into a sunny smile that stretches and moves a scar on the side of his head, right where Aunt Ripley has one.

"Breaking and entering, eh? If I say you're just like your gramps, kid, you gotta promise to keep that between us," the man says. The lady in the hospital bed isn't moving. Dipper only knows it's a lady because he knows it's his Aunt Ripley lying there. The man gives Gideon another smile. "And now, you I have indeed met, haven't I? Forgive an old fart if my memory lapses any, but you're Gideon Gleeful, is that right?"

"Yes sir, it sure is," Gideon says brightly, and all of a sudden he's Gideon The Dancing Psychic Boy again, the charm turned way up. "I thankya for rememberin' me, Mister Savage. It was a difficult time for takin' names when we met."

"Yeah, I'd say so, kiddo! You can relax, though, in here I'm just Old Man Johnny," he says, then pauses. "Wait, no, you boys already know an Old Man Something, right? Shoot, I'll think of a fun nickname later." He points at Dipper. "Now, I know you're not Jakey, but damn if you don't look like your dad at that age, huh? We haven't been introduced yet, but Sherm and Jessie carry about a thousand pictures in their new-fangled future-phones, so by process of elimination you're Dipper Pines, right?"

"That- that's me," Dipper says, holding out his hand and glancing anxiously at the not-moving lady on the hospital bed. The man takes his hand and shakes it gently.

"And I'm John. And so far I've heard a lot of impressive stuff about you, though to be fair, I don't think your grandparents think anything you do isn't impressive as hell," he says, sitting back down. "So, come in to say hi, huh?"

"Is-" Dipper starts, and can't finish. He looks down at the lady on the hospital bed. The insides of her arms and the tops of her hands are purple, needled tubes sprouting from the blossoming bruises on her arms and hands and even the tips of two of her fingers. Her glasses are gone somewhere, and there is a thicker tube in her nose, and an even thicker one in her mouth. Things attached to her- things he knows the name of, he does, even though all he can think of is that scene in ET, when Elliot is dying because ET is dying, and Elliot is getting better because ET cut himself away from his first and best friend on this planet- are attached to bundles of wires and cords. There are beeping machines, and hanging bags of stuff, and he thinks her nose was broken- again- because there is an almost black-purple crescent under each eye, and her dark blond eyelashes stand out against them. Without her glasses and her bangs there's nothing to hide the scars on her face.

Her hair is shorter.

_his family, crowned in fire_

He's not sure why it's worse to see her hair sitting limp and short against her pillow instead of forever springing loose from a ponytail or braid, why that's the thing that stops him up, and not the bandages wrapped around her body and peeking out from under the hospital gown, not the tubes, not the needles or the visible places where blood has dotted the pristine blankness of white linen. Her hair's always been long. The little girl in Aunt Ripley's Treehouse had had short hair, too.

Dipper wants to cry and is dismayed to realize that he already is. He wants to crawl into the bed with her and is horrified at the thought of knocking something loose, maybe being the _reason_ she's not-okay, that the systems all start to fail. He wants Grandpa and Stan and Ford. He wishes Gideon weren't here to see this, and that thought makes him cry even worse.

"Hey, hey. It's alright, Dipper-" The man comes around the hospital bed, gives Dipper's head a soft pat, ruffling his hair. "It's okay to cry, it's okay to feel like this- this is a lot, I know. Nothing anomalous about crying out some big feelings at a situation like this."

Dipper almost doesn't understand these words through the force of his tears, but eventually the tears slow down, and he can breathe again, and when he looks at her she's still on the bed, looking like she has any number of times he's come in to wake her up this summer. He tentatively reaches for her hand and takes hold of her long thumb, everything else looking like it's been beat up or scraped to heck-hell or stuck with one of those finger-cuffs that hide yet another needle.

"A little less big now, maybe?" John asks kindly. "If it helps, just imagine the state I was in when I first got in here. Oh, there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

"Matthew Eight Twelve," Gideon says shakily, and John gives him a finger-gun. It's an eerily Aunt Ripley movement, and Dipper wonders, suddenly, if that's where she got it form originally. Hadn't there been somebody she cared about a lot, in the Blue Journal entries she'd allowed him to read through? Hadn't his name been John?

"We wanted to see her," Dipper says distantly. The hospital is very cold but Aunt Ripley's thumb, it seems, is very warm. "I came because Grunkle Ford's awake and- and I'd seen him when he was sleeping, but now he's awake. And- and I didn't get to see her yet."

"Do you want me to take you over to where he is now, kid?" John asks, still smiling. "Your Assorted Pines Gramps are all together, right now, so you could spend time with Stanley and your grandfather."

"My mom and dad are coming," Dipper adds, and John nods. Dipper doesn't let go of Aunt Ripley's hand. "Can- can she hear us? Is she- is she braindead, or-"

"Oh, kiddo," John says, and puts his old hand on top of Dipper's head again. "Oh, Dipper. No, she's not braindead. There is a lot happening, and it's going to take time before she's feeling up to doing some of the stuff she's used to doing, but we've taken care of the worst of it. I've called in a lot of favors- a lot of favors, believe me, because people have been owing me since '94 and I aim to collect- and now we're just playing the waiting game. A lot of her systems should now, to paraphrase, be optimized. Ouros Four Twenty-seven." He does the finger gun again, grinning nervously. "That's a Foundation joke. I'm just now realizing you have no context for it. It's probably pretty funny to Agents Ginger, Tango, and Angelface."

"You're a lot like Aunt Ripley," Dipper says, and John's grin widens.

"Thank you, kiddo. I'm... I'm awful glad to hear you say so," he says. "How about that walk over to your uncle's room, huh? Before he starts wondering where you two might be."

"Wait, can I-" Dipper starts, flustered. "First, can I-"

"Kid," John says. It doesn't feel like an insult, when he says it. "You saved my- my girl's life, Dipper. You can do anything you want."

His smile is wide, but there is water there, too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She floats.

She is not under, necessarily- she is and feels and knows nothing, up top, but below that there is a part of her that hears voices and knows it is good. Deeper than that is a part of her that knows they are the voices of people she loves dearly, would do anything for. That part of her is far, now, and her mind is glasslike water, running swift and ceaselessly over and past the river-polished rocks of thought and memory. She is and feels and knows nothing, on top of the water, but inside it she knows that the rocks are there to pick up later and examine.

The voices outside are present but not. There is something behind her which concerns her more, so far as anything can. It is a familiar presence, somehow: a hoarse and coughing laugh, the faint but recognizable _beep_ noises she can sometimes put a name to, and a feeling of holding and being held. It is ragged now, but the voice should be strong- not young, even when it was a young thing it was ancient with the kind of strange and wonderful power that runs through people and places far more than the waking world will admit. It is a voice that can, with practice and intent, convince any listener to do anything, given the time to talk long enough.

She does not know this. She knows and is and feels nothing. She floats.

"Oh, honey, like you even believe that in the Up-Top?" sneers the Thing That Stands Behind Her. It is not an unkind sneer. It is the sound of someone who knows she is playing games and is ready for it to be over. There is a warmth, moving against her, pressing into the back of her. Something in her notes, _Virginia Slims. Knockoff Chanel Number Five._

These six words are **R E A L** in a way nothing else is, and they mean nothing to her.

"We are all owed a death, aren't we, Ripley? Your nice young man with the spiders said that. Or will say that. Time is funny where I am. You've already met my Lee, haven't you?" The Thing That Stands Behind Her is comfortable where it is, and she is comfortable with it. "But I've got one, and it's funny- funny like time, isn't it?- because my sons have been so desperate to forget this particular pearl."

She's not afraid. She is so used to being afraid. The Thing That Stands Behind Her sighs, presses a soft kiss- lips not yet dried and cracked by the chemo, huh?- against her.

"We are all owed a life, too, Ripley. Come on, _mija_. You're owed."


End file.
